REVO-LOO-TION
US employers in the depression knew that dirty bathrooms bred trouble
at work. This poster is a genuine advertisement from Scot Tissues, circa
1930. This poster, and others, available from Northland
Poster Collective

TOILET BREAKS

The loopy loo loophole
has gotta go!
Under Britain's crazy workplace welfare laws, every employer has got
to provide access to a loo - but they can also stop you from using
it! TUC and Hazards believe when you've gotta go, you've gotta
go.TUC/Hazards loo breaks campaign

Hazards 81
extended briefing: Toilet breaks

Give us a break!

You are an adult. You go to work, you do your job. You'd think that going
to the loo when you needed to would be part of the deal. Unfortunately,
for most workers it is not that simple. Dickensian bathroom break policies,
aided by a loo breaks loophole in the law, is putting the health and dignity
of Britain's workers at risk.

Britain's bad bosses have a dirty secret. They don't think you deserve
the right to choose when you need to go to the loo. They don't think toilet
breaks should be on the clock. They don't trust you behind closed doors,
so they spy on their washrooms. They work you so hard there's no time
for breaks.

A November 2002 poll of more than 1,000 staff found over half (54 per
cent) of British workers are too busy to take toilet breaks. The Ex-Lax
sponsored research also found 1 in 4 were put off by the condition of
workplace bathrooms, with almost 1 in 4 (18 per cent) saying there was
not enough privacy.

For many others though, it's not a case of "won't go". They work in "can't
go" workplaces where the management's penny-pinching Lavatory Lieutenants
slam the lid on toilet breaks.

In the 2002 Loo Breaks Study, Christine Norton, a
nursing professor at St Mark's Hospital, London, asked 200 workers if
they "had any problems using toilet facilities to pass stools while
working." Of these 151, over 75 per cent, said they had a problem
at least some of the time.

She adds: "Two-thirds of the sample completing
questionnaires believed that the type of work they did, the structure
of their working day or the activities they were involved in during the
day prevented them from taking loo breaks at work."

One in three said management "imposed rules
and regulations that led them to defer taking loo breaks" during
the working day.

Norton found half of call centre staff deferred toilet
breaks "because of management and related issues, and one if four
deferred several times a week or more." Nurses reported similar problems
with "work culture".

Mean bosses at Brown Brothers' factory in Kirkconnell, Scotland docked
their workers' wages for the time they spend in the loo. The workers'
union TGWU objected after the 200 staff were issued with smart cards that
deduct their pay for the time they're away from the factory floor.

One worker said in one week employers had pinched £5.28, an hours
wages, from his wage packet just for going to the loo. He said: "The
motto among the staff here is: 'Have a break - have a quick crap'."

And the big names are at it too. Construction giant Bovis was panned
for its dirty habits and fined £5,000. On a £15 million job,
the company wanted 80 workers on 12-hour shifts to share just four toilets,
describe in court by a Health and Safety Executive inspector as "totally
inadequate" and "only suitable for 10 men working a 40-hour
week."

Dave Smith (below), a safety rep with construction union UCATT, was fired
by Tarmac off-shoot Schal for making a stink about "pigsty"
toilets. Not his conclusion, but the views of all 150 workers on the site,
who added their names to a five-sheet petition condemning the loos.

A bus company in Gloucester went as far as issuing emergency potties
(chamber pots) to drivers banned in 1999 from using the toilets at the
city's bus terminal.

In 1998 communication union CWU reported that British Telecom, one of
Britain's biggest employers, required staff to put up their hand to get
permission to go - which could be refused if cover was not available (Hazards
64).

And the TUC cites the case of a poultry producer from the Midlands made
workers who wanted to go to the toilet put their names on a list. Some
had to wait up to two hours to get permission.

Speed-up of work and new management techniques are making loo breaks
vulnerable across the industrialised world and in big name companies.

In Canada, after a survey of workers at the four major motor manufacturers,
GM, Ford, Chrysler and CAMI, the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) concluded:
"Across all four companies, workers found it difficult to find a
relief worker so that they could go to the washroom" (Hazards
64).

The US foodworkers' union UFCW has reported similar problems in a number
of workplaces, with workers resorting to the use of adult diapers.

A US Bureau of National Affairs report highlights the case of a female
factory worker who spent 10 per cent of her weekly wage on incontinent
pads, worn inside her uniform because she was forced to work six hours
without a break. One company even discouraged workers from drinking water
to reduce time spent in the toilet (cited in Workers' Health International
Newsletter, no.53, 1998).

A lack of facilities for women in traditionally male industries can have
its own problems. A pregnant night shift worker at a Ford plant in Southampton
had to be escorted by a security guard across a badly lit car park to
the nearest women's toilet so he could unlock it, wait until she'd finished,
then escort her back.

TeleTech,
one of the world's largest call centre companies with operations in the
UK, dismissed a pregnant woman for taking too many toilet breaks at one
of its Australian workplaces.

In the US, a compliance
memo from the government health and safety enforcement agency OSHA
says that where an employee's absence would be "disruptive", for example
on assembly lines, extended delays are still not acceptable and recommends
relief worker systems. "As long as there are sufficient relief workers
to assure that employees need not wait an unreasonably long time to use
the bathroom, OSHA believes that these systems comply with the standard."Top of page

Keeping tabs - privacy issues

Steel union ISTC reports managers at Albion Pressed Metals had nine inches
cut of the bottom of loo doors so they could catch workers smoking.

Other employers have argued for toilet surveillance as a workplace anti-drugs
measure, with video surveillance in workplace bathrooms.

In Australia, the installation in 2002 of permanent cameras in the toilets
of a drug testing facility in Mount Isa Mines (MIM) was condemned as a
gross invasion of privacy and "an example of drug testing policy
gone mad" by the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU).
AMWU is concerned that MIM has cameras permanently positioned at its facility
capable of close-up filming of both men and women urinating.

In the US, multinational Colgate Palmolive found itself in trouble after
workers discovered hidden cameras peering down at them in the men's room
and exercise room at work. The National Labor Relations Board ruled that
the cameras should not have been introduced without negotiation with the
union.

Advertising staff at Bristol United Press used to
have to ask permission to use the toilet at work - until their union,
GPMU, ran a successful protest leafleting campaign (Hazards
80).

The US union at bourbon maker Jim Beam, UFCW, won
a reversal of the company's policy of limiting bathroom breaks for workers
at a Kentucky distillery (Hazards
80).

The rules - and disciplinary measures used to enforce
them - outraged workers, some of whom said they'd had to pee themselves
or face disciplinary action - and drew a citation from the Labor Cabinet,
the official enforcement agency, which called the policy illegal.

A 13-day strike by 15,000 Swedish
bus drivers won a pay rise and regular scheduled toilet breaks of
between 6 and 15 minutes, depending on the length of driving time.
The cartoon, published by the Swedish Municipal Employees' Union during
the successful strike, says: "We believe this is the driver's
seat of the future."

Inadequate bathrooms, spies in the toilet and too few bathroom breaks
and more than an affront to dignity, they are a workplace health and safety
hazard.

A compliance memorandum from the US health and safety enforcement agency
OHSA explained that the rules were necessary "so that employees will
not suffer the adverse health effects that can result if toilets are not
available when employees need them...

"Medical studies show the importance of regular urination with women
generally needing to void more frequently than men. Adverse health effects
that may result from voluntary urinary retention include increased frequency
of urinary tract infections (UTIs), which can lead to more serious infections
and, in rare situations, renal damage. UTIs during pregnancy have been
associated with low birthweight babies, who are at risk of for additional
health problems compared to normal weight infants.

"Medical evidence also shows that health problems, including constipation,
abdominal pain, diverticuli, and haemorrhoids, can result if individuals
delay defecation." (Compliance
memo)

Professor Christine Norton, a consultant in bowel control at St Mark's
Hospital, London, notes "that ignoring the urge to empty the bowel
can lead to constipation. Over time, repeatedly ignoring signals that
the bowel is full can lead to bowel distension, a reduction in muscle
tone and even to accidents of the bowel."

Holding off peeing can also lead to a thickening of the bladder wall
and the need to pee even more frequently.

Waiting to go go

Not getting to go when you need to can cause health effects including:

Under Britain's crazy workplace welfare laws, every employer has got
to provide access to a loo - but they can also stop you from using it!
TUC and Hazards believe when you've gotta go, you've gotta go.
We want:

 HSE to clarify rest break requirements
to state explicitly that in all but exceptional circumstances workers
can choose to go to the loo when they want. There should be sufficient
workers to provide relief, so the employer can let you go.

 DTI to amend the law so peeing is not a privilege, but a right
on paid work time.

 Employers to respect our privacy and our right to go without
docking our pay, and to provide clean and adequate facilities.

 Employers' organisations and government agencies to join unions
in campaigning to get employers to show some respect at work.

Loo break liberties

Do you know a workplace toilet worse
than this? Send a photo to Hazards.

Marc Linder, the Iowa professor whose book, Void where prohibited,
awakened unions to the need to treat toilet breaks as a health and safety
negotiating issue, has published a follow-up.

Void where prohibited revisited: The trickle down effect of OSHA's
at will bathroom break regulation investigates whether restrictive
restroom policies still exist in the US, five years after the federal
health and safety agency OSHA - stung into action by Linder's first edition
- issued an enforcement memorandum that "requires employers to make toilet
facilities available so that employees can use them when they need to
do so".

The real-life experience of US workers suggest the answer is "no," something
the Jim Beam dispute in Kentucky starkly illustrates.